


THIS IS ABOUT TENNIS

by ember_alda



Series: Realms of Influence [8]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Crack, Gen, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Tennis AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ember_alda/pseuds/ember_alda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Squalo hits Yamamoto in the eye with a tennis ball, and Yamamoto likes it.</p><p>Unashamedly fluffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	THIS IS ABOUT TENNIS

 

“Haha, so um…how about after practice we go out to eat or something, senpai?”

Squalo hates all his kouhai, people younger than him were weaker, more uncool, had bad skills in tennis, and Squalo didn’t have the patience for that kind of trash. This one was more clingy than usual. Couldn’t the kid tell that he was _busy playing a fucking match_?

The hard swing at his opponent returned the ball twice as fast as normal, a slice giving the ball quite the velocity as Squalo sprints to the far corner to catch it, arm stretching out in a long, sinuous line to hit it in his racket’s sweet spot. The ongoing rally ends quickly when the ball speeds to the left corner in an impossible to return rebound. A hard, mocking grin spreads on Squalo’s face as he breathes in harsh, panted breaths while sweat drips from every inch of his body.

Showed fucking Levi he was ten times the player that suck up was.

His hand automatically snatches the towel and water bottle extended to him, flopping back onto the bench as he tilts his head, immediately recognizing the face that gave him his things.

“That was an amazing return, senpai.”

Squalo almost chucks the towel across his face back just because it was the younger kid who gave it to him.

“Are you a fucking stalker or what?”

“Haha, but we’re on the same team! You guys train up the underclassmen all the time. It’s natural to want to do something after the club, right?”

“That’s because that bastard Xanxus said he doesn’t want to graduate and leave his tennis club to crumble like loser trash. It’s NOT because I feel responsible for you little shits!”

Yamamoto rubs his arm, wincing as he smiled. The pains from the five hundred swing reps they had to do today were starting to settle in. Their current captain was a really Spartan man despite how much he lounged around on the bench yelling about how lazy trash should practice harder while he sipped his Pocari, though he shouldn’t complain considering how much harder Tsuna had it with their coach Reborn.

“But that’s what a good captain wants, right? I’m glad you care so much about the team.”

Squalo was not about to explain to him the pull-pull and more fucking pull dynamics of his and Xanxus’ relationship. The captain wanted something done, the captain would punch his face in as many times as it took to make Squalo do something he loathes.

“Whatever.” The vice-captain thrust back the now empty bottle into Yamamoto’s gut, who doubles over from the force and tries not to wince too hard but failed.

“Get me some more water.”

As Yamamoto turned around to fill it at the fountain, that abrasive, friendly smile came back.

“Sure thing!”

-0-

Gokudera took one look at the way Yamamoto was rubbing his eye and scowled.

“I don’t know why you keep going back to that fucking sadist. It’s not like he’s actually showing you anything.”

Yamamoto laughs, switching out his lunch for a juice box as he swings his feet on the bench. The gauze taped over his eye was kind of itchy, but the throbbing pain from yesterday had died down a lot, and really Shamal-sensei had said it was a superficial cut and that it didn’t need to be treated.

“It’s not that bad, Gokudera. It doesn’t hurt at all now and Squalo-senpai said he was sorry after the accident.”

His best friend gives another one of his patented scoffs, toeing his racket bag on the ground. “That’s cause you have the sensitivity of a cockroach and our _senpai_ ,” he spits out, “don’t have a fucking threshold. He only apologized after coach Reborn shot the ball machine at him for two hours.”

It wasn’t like Yamamoto to hold a grudge, especially after that spectacular practice match. Squalo and him had generated a buzz all through practice, Reborn even stopping to watch them drag out each set to the full limit of time. It was nice that Gokudera was concerned about him, though.

“I dunno, I think it was fun, even after I was hit in the eye.”

Gokudera glances at him as Yamamoto stares out at the green pith of the court, a rare serious and fervent shine in his eyes while he watches a doubles team practice under the sun. A day after the accident and the idiot isn’t resting but comes out with Gokudera for their weekly meeting at the park like nothing happened.

“Whatever. Tennis freak.”

Yamamoto laughs, getting up and blocking the bright sparkle of the sun with his hand. “I know you’re one too. I saw how hard you were working to defeat Bel-senpai’s buggy whip shot.”

Tsuna had been sitting on the side watching them, trying to gulp in the world’s supply of air after Xanxus had a match with him just after Reborn made him do sixty laps around the courts.

The faint blush in Gokudera’s cheeks can’t be explained away by exertion this time. “Well yeah, i-if Tsuna is going to be captain next year I have to be twice as strong to be vice-captain.”

Stretching out his back, Yamamoto looks down at his friend who gathered up his racket to start on their match. “Haha, you can be his other vice-captain.”

“What?! I’m going to be Tsuna’s _only_ vice-captain, and we’re going to take him to nationals! He can’t count on a stupid guy who lets loud mouths injure him on the courts all the time!”

The almost affectionate way Yamamoto touches the gauze on his face reinforces Gokudera’s insight on his friend’s sanity.

“He’s not all that bad. His tennis- it’s really electrifying. Guess I just got caught up in it.”

An elbow to his side jerks Yamamoto’s stance. “You better be a good opponent this time, even with your stupid eye. I need to practice up for regionals.”

He smiles at the subtle prompt to get better and sharpen his skills.

“Let’s play.”

-0-

The stupid kid was up and about pestering him perfectly fine after four days of recovery. Squalo thought that Yamamoto’s eye injury would have curbed his enthusiasm but if anything, the kid seemed to be in high spirits, running around fetching the balls like it was a game instead of menial labor.

“Watching your admirer huh? Is this finally requited love?~”

Squalo shoves Lussuria’s face into the chain links without even turning his head.

“Shut the fuck up you okama wanna be. Stop talking about disgusting things, the kid’s just being more hyper than usual and it’s annoying.”

Face smashing against the wires, the sunglasses always present on Lussuria’s face skew as he leans in to watch their kouhai do warm ups on the practice court.

“It really must be love, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get so serious about tennis with anyone besides Xanxus before. You really let loose that time without meaning to.”

Automatically Squalo’s mind winds back to that practice set where for once, his muscles burned with the hard ache that came from stretching himself to the limit. He’d dominated in the first three sets but that kid, he really had some amazing instincts in him. Even after Squalo had whipped a power serve that should have numbed the kid’s arm for a good while, he kept going. The way Yamamoto caught that high lob and faked his smash into a drop-shot…something switched on in Squalo. He’d been pissed off at the turn in the game, outsmarted by an _underclassman_ , excited and agitated. For a whole hour he had thought of nothing else but _tennis_.

His senses had sharpened, eyes catching every twist of Yamamoto’s arm, the trajectory of the ball flying in the air, the ticks in his muscles from the short sprints across the court magnified by ten, and the hard itch of his hair tie on his neck filtered through in twenty twenty clarity. The beat of the sun and the beat of his shoes against the court was all that mattered and _that kid_ , with the way he was totally dedicated to the game, was completely undeniable.

“It was fucking _tennis_ , Lussuria. That brat _beat me_ and it was fucking great tennis.”

Lussuria smiles. He knows how Squalo feels; after all, their underclassman power player had set off that same spark. “It’s going to be a good team next year, don’t you think?”

Despite the fondness that colored his tone earlier, a hard, sharp grin cuts across Squalo’s face.

“Those little shits better be prepared, I’m going to beat them down to a bloody pulp with practice. Their eyes’ll ring with tennis balls their backs will hurt so much they can’t get up in the morning and whenever they sweat Gatorade better pour out from their arm pits or else I’ll be on them like a mother fucking rainstorm.”

Lussuria smiles too, eyes gazing across at the equally enthusiastic Ryohei feeding the ball machines. He really doesn’t know how their kouhai are going to survive Xanxus’ and their expectations for next year.

-0-

Squalo berated himself for even remotely thinking the stupid brat was halfway decent. After their recent practice match, where Yamamoto had somehow managed to copy his specialty numbing serve, however weakly, Squalo had been in a relatively mellow mood. His kouhai stalked up to him as usual and tossed him his towel and bottle, asking him again this time to go eat somewhere after club activities. Looking up at the warm, expectant face, Squalo’s mouth opened and answered on its own.

What the hell had possessed him to say ok to Yamamoto’s stupid request?

“Why are we in a _McDonald’s_?”

“It’s the only place closest to where me and you live, right? I don’t get to eat out a lot.”

There’s nothing else to do but take a bite out of his hamburger. Maybe if he eats fast enough they can leave soon and Squalo won’t have to stand being in this awkward situation for any longer the necessary. What the hell were they supposed to talk about? He didn’t care and Yamamoto was a bumbling clueless idiot like he always was.

“Eat your food and let’s split.”

The younger kid takes a sip of his drink, beaming like he hadn’t just rudely told him he was a nuisance.

“Ok. But let’s talk while we eat. How did you learn that awesome serve, senpai?”

“I went around the street courts and challenged every guy I saw and stole all their skills until that stupid Tyr. After he defeated me I came up with my new serve and beat the shit out of him.”

Ahhh, those were the good old days, before Xanxus was snatched up by coach Reborn and they did whatever the hell they wanted, terrorizing the other middle schoolers around them. Squalo was a tennis genius and if he got bored he could easily find opponents to smash into the court, but now they were regulated. If anything, he should be surprised at how much Yamamoto had picked up in such a short time, the kid had copied his serve pretty well for the first time. He asks the question that’d been working up in his head the past few weeks.

“What about you? You were never this motivated before. I saw you last year with the other snots and your skills were pathetic. How did you improve so much?”

“I don’t know, whenever I face you it all just comes pouring out of me. I can’t help myself, I couldn’t disappoint you. I want to be stronger, I want to return everything you throw at me and more, I want to laugh because it’s the most fun I’ve ever had. You’re a really great senpai, I can’t help but want to be better around you.”

The words came out on their own to himself. “Are we talking about tennis?”

“I don’t know, are we talking about tennis?”

There’s a transparent look to his kouhai’s eyes that invited him to read the obvious message beneath the kid’s words, and Squalo can’t stop _staring_ at him. What the fuck was going on if it wasn’t tennis? He didn’t care and he didn’t want to know, but somehow Yamamoto makes him almost want to acknowledge what he was _really_ saying. That kid had a habit of making Squalo pay attention no matter how much he didn’t want to.

A hand jabs out with a french fry to emphasize his point. “It doesn’t matter, tennis or not you’re still the most annoying person I know.”

“Haha, I’m glad you think I’m memorable.”

Yamamoto snatches him by the wrist, and with that breezy smile he always had at practice despite the torn muscles and fatigue, eats the fry perched between Squalo’s frozen fingers.

“I’ll come and watch your matches in high school after graduation. Maybe we can come out again and celebrate your wins, sometime.”

The laugh that bursts out at this kid’s audaciousness is harsh and rough and everything Squalo is in tennis and life. “You better pay me for those fries next time.”

 

THE END

 


End file.
